Matt Gurney: Hey, Ontario Teachers, leave them kids alone

Hey, Ontario Teachers, (don't) leave them kids alone

Ahead of Thursday’s preview by Ontario education minister Laurel Broten of the province’s bill to freeze teachers’ wages for two years if the unions do not reach new agreements with their school boards by Sept. 1, one of Ontario’s largest teachers unions issued a press release calling on Premier Dalton McGuinty and his government to “put students first.”

Ken Coran, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, used the release to ask the government to respect “defined process for collective bargaining.” The release notes that teachers joined Mr. Coran in a “loud and enthusiastic pledge to stand up, stand strong and stand united in their fight to protect their collective bargaining rights and to protect public education.”

Not a single sentence in this press release says a thing about putting students first. Good heavens … it actually seems like it’s entirely about the unions not wanting to negotiate with the province on the latter’s terms. That sounds more like putting union negotiating preferences first and students … somewhere else.

Premier McGuinty himself, of course, never hesitates to speak about families and children when it suits his political agenda. But both the province and unions are doing themselves and Ontarians a disservice in obscuring the real cause of the dispute between them: the difficult reality of a cash-strapped province negotiating with its public-sector workers.

Ontario says the two-year wage freeze on most teachers is necessary to set the province back on a sustainable fiscal path, and several of the unions have accepted. Others, however, including Mr. Coran’s and the Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario — the two largest unions — insist that they will deal directly with the local school boards and want the wage freezes limited to only senior teachers.

Both sides have legitimate claims — the province is in dire straits, and the teachers do have traditional bargaining practices. But the unions are playing a risky game in demanding wage increases in times of austerity, not just because the government has little money, but because the public is unlikely to feel much sympathy for already well-paid teachers, who enjoy excellent benefits.

Pretending to be fighting for students, instead of their own economic interests, is a tried-and-true tactic of Ontario teachers. But if they expect to garner much sympathy from the public, they’re going to have to try harder.